Chris Van Hollen: “I was scheduled a couple days ago to come here to the Senate floor to talk about what measures the United States could…”

“I was scheduled a couple days ago to come here to the Senate floor to talk about what measures the United States could be taking now to help relieve the suffering in Sudan, and I plan to get to that topic. But since I planned to come talk about that, we have seen this disaster unfolding on Capitol Hill, where an agreement that had been reached in a bipartisan manner between Democrats and Republicans, between the House and the Senate, to prevent a government shutdown and to support critical priorities around the country, how that bipartisan agreement got blown up because of a tweet from Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. And we don't know if he has just decided that he is going to be sort of the kingmaker on Capitol Hill. All I do know is that that was shortly followed by tweets from the President-elect and other members of the Trump family. Who is leading whom here, we don't know. All we know is that the end result is very bad for the American people because Federal employees provide all sorts of vital services, from air traffic controllers to nurses and doctors in veterans hospitals, to the people who look out for the safety of our food. Some of them will be prevented from coming to work. Others will be asked to go to work without their salary during that period of time. All of that will disrupt the country, and all of that was avoidable.…”